Operators of mobile systems such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS) are increasingly relying on wireless small cell radio access networks (RANs) in order to deploy indoor voice and data services to enterprises and other customers. Such small cell RANs typically utilize multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communications with multiple users using radio frequency (RF) signals and sharing available system resources such as bandwidth and transmit power. While such small cell RANs operate satisfactorily in many applications, there exists a need for further improvements in small cell RAN technologies.
For example, one problem with small cell RANs is that inter-cell interference prevents these systems from coming close to their theoretical data rates for multi-cell networks. Such interference arises because the same spectral resources are used in different cells, leading to interference for terminals (e.g., User Equipment) located at the edge between cells. Release 11 of the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) specifications proposes the use of Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) technology to mitigate problems caused by inter-cell interference. One aspect of CoMP technology involves the scheduling of time-frequency resources by cells in a cooperative manner. The use of CoMP technology generally comes at the cost of increased demand on the backhaul (high capacity and low latency), higher complexity, increased synchronization requirements and so on.
This Background is provided to introduce a brief context for the Summary and Detailed Description that follow. This Background is not intended to be an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter nor be viewed as limiting the claimed subject matter to implementations that solve any or all of the disadvantages or problems presented above.